Don’t Drain Your Swimming Pool

Now that the weather is cooling down all over the country most pool professionals will recommend a water change/drain and refill if your Calcium Hardness or CYA levels are high. They suggest a water change because now is the safest time to change out the water in your pool but that isn’t necessarily the case and we hope we can use this blog post to educate you on why you shouldn’t empty your pool.

There are major risks and dangers anytime you plan on draining a swimming pool, which includes vinyl liner and fiberglass pools. Some of the risks of draining swimming pool water are summarized below:

• In-ground vinyl liner swimming pools are the most dangerous to drain as they do not have any physical structure to hold back the weight of the dirt when the pool is drained. When the pool is drained, it can cause the walls to collapse, or groundwater can cause the liner to float; neither of which are good for swimming pools!
• Fiberglass pools are often inserted into an excavated area and then backfilled with dirt.  Since the water weight is far greater than the weight of the fiberglass shell, removing the water weight in a fiberglass pool is extremely dangerous as it applies to these types of pools coming out of the ground.
• In-ground concrete pools are structurally built to withstand the weight of the water pushing outward on the shell, and that water weight helps keep the shell in the ground. However, if the groundwater is high enough, it can push the entire pool out of the ground.  Once a pool has popped out of the ground it will not go back down!
• In-ground concrete swimming pool finishes (plaster) can also crack when the temperature is above 70-75 degrees and the surface of the swimming pool doesn’t remain wet.  Swimming pool plaster has been wet since the day it was installed (it cures underwater) and contracts when the water is taken away.  Once this finish rehydrates, it expands and the risk of delamination occurs.

There is always going to be a risk when you drain swimming pools. In the Southwestern United States, where drought conditions are on the rise, the simple and easy answer is not to drain your pool but to recycle it instead.

At Pure Water Industries, we offer The Puripool Process which utilizes Reverse Osmosis (RO) filtration to lower Calcium Hardness, TDS, and CYA without draining the swimming pool. Since the water level never changes in the swimming pool it’s safe to perform this process all year round. To learn more about our service and why it’s a much smarter decision, contact us today!